


what is (and what should never be)

by TheResurrectionist



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Violence, Fix-It of Sorts, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Bruce Wayne, Lazarus Pit, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Requited Unrequited Love, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tumblr Prompt, how far will these idiots go for each other?, possessive Clark, what is the square root of infinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-13 13:40:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21495202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheResurrectionist/pseuds/TheResurrectionist
Summary: “You forbade me,” Clark whispers, face twisted into an unrecognizable mask. If he hadn’t seen the transformation with his own eyes, the man in front of him might as well have been an entirely different person. “An invasion of privacy. Inappropriate. Crossing a line.”He splays a hand across Bruce’s chest, appallingly intimate. With a press of his fingers, the buttons disintegrate, leaving his chest bare. Clark’s fingers dig into his sternum, five points of fire on overheated skin.“I would have seen it,” Clark utters, wretched. His hair is mussed, eyes a dimming scarlet as the hand around Bruce’s throat tightens. “I would have seen it, you son of a bitch!”From tumblr. AKA, "what if Bruce got cancer after he told Clark to never use his x-ray vision on him? but with a happy-ish ending so tumblr doesn't kill me?"
Relationships: Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 37
Kudos: 1100





	what is (and what should never be)

He presses a fingertip to the scans, looking up and down the film. The plastic under his hands creaks slightly, bending against the lightbox. He wonders, idly, how many of these his father read--interpreted to patients in this very same hospital, curt yet compassionate; all of his optimism cut by the icewater of _ prognoses _ and _ realistic timeframes. _

“Bruce?”

No, he decides, tapping one of the left lobes. His father wouldn’t have let the timbre of fear leak into his tone--whether he was delivering the best news, or the near-devastating. Leslie’s tone, the slight shake to her hands--the ephemeral sense of fear, hanging in the room between them. Thomas Wayne had been, had always been, more than composed. And yet--

_ More the human for it, _he thinks, turning around. Leslie is staring at a spot just beyond his head, wrists clutched inbetween the folds of her thin white coat. 

“Thank you, Leslie,” he smiles, surprised by the genuineness of the motion. “I think that’s all I’ll need.”

She starts, wrists unlocking. “I haven’t interpreted the--”

Bruce shakes his head, silencing her mid-protest. The fractals of grey and white, sprawled across his chest cavity, bleeding into alveoli and nearby muscle, are the opposite of uninterpretable. Painfully obvious, for all its growth seemed to lack pain.

_ (a carbon copy of the warning labels on cigarette labels in Metropolis, because Gotham was too good to warn its citizens off of a momentary relief of tar and ash-- _) 

“Bruce.”

For the first time in a long, long career, he thinks of how small she is. How frail, as she reaches a bony hand to grasp him by the shoulder, firmly, like one would a misbehaving child.

“Leslie.”

The response, when it comes, is halting. 

“What will you tell the boys?”

He considers the x-rays again, breathing in slowly. He ignores, pretends so perfectly, that his breath doesn’t catch in his chest. That the slight hitch of pain on the end of every spoken word is nothing--a figure of an imagination he thought he’d abandoned, nearly forty years ago. 

“Enough,” he exhales, smiling. At Leslie’s dubious look, he puts a hand around her shoulders, guiding her to the door. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

Bruce jerks his head toward the exit, where a plume of acrid smoke hangs over the window. Smoker’s lounge--ironic, considering the purpose of the hospital. “Got any cigarettes?”

Leslie jerks out of his grip, turning on him in the hallway. 

“Bruce _ Thomas Wayne.” _she utters, aghast. Her hands are shaking again, at her sides this time, freed from her cuffs. 

He feels rebelliously like Jason for a moment, chided and all the more smug for it. It feels like falling, like giving in. 

“What? It’s not like I’m going to—“

The slap leaves them both stunned. Leslie’s hand hangs in the air for several seconds, red with the force it took to backhand the Dark Knight himself. 

Bruce presses gingerly at his cheekbone, shocked. It’ll bruise--no doctor, he, yet of this he’s certain. Leslie’s fury rings in his ears, in tempo with the rush of blood as something--some sense of _ reality _\--seems to finally sink in. 

“Don’t you dare,” Leslie growls, under her breath. “Don’t you fucking _ dare _let them hear you speak like that.”

After what seems like an eternity, he nods. Half-numb from the slap, his eyes drop to the floor latching onto the linoleum in shame. 

“Now,” Leslie says, steel threading through her words. He wonders if he was wrong about her temperament, if only for the way she seems to shrug off the sadness of the last ten minutes. “Coffee?”

* * *

He tells Alfred that evening, the left side of his face still stinging in shame. He recounts the diagnosis robotically, watching as grief cracks open in the butler’s eyes. He can pinpoint the second it hits him--the second where _ weeks, maybe _is quantified into days. Hours. 

Alfred’s grip is bruising. Bruce lets him drag him down into an embrace, hunches over as the butler refuses to make a noise, save for the stuttered _ oh my boy _Bruce almost doesn’t hear, whispered into his neck like a confession. 

They stand in the pantry, together, for what seems like hours, clinging to each other. The thought of breaking away makes his eyes sting, so he...doesn’t.

* * *

Silence. 

Shocked disbelief. An ache in his own chest, burning into his throat, as things seem to transform in slow-motion. 

A glimmer of fear as Jason punches a wall, comically slow, as Tim hunches over, screaming in shuttered frames, held half-upright by Dick, punctuated by distant _ no no no no’s, _as Damian trembles ever so finely in the center of the room, eyes welling with tears he has never seen before. As---

He escapes the cacophony, sprints up the stairs to his bedroom until his lungs burn, until he can barely make it to his bed before his knees give out. There is blood on his lips--blood on the pillowcase, as it dribbles slowly from his mouth. Every breath is another spiderweb of red across silk, and for a moment, the beauty of it catches him in its thrall, blurring the screams and shouting downstairs into a hum. 

A gun fires, somewhere near the parlor. He couldn’t get up if he wanted.

* * *

Clark is the last one. 

He wonders, in the near-silence of the zeta tube, if that was an oversight on his part, or intentional. Best friends they were, yet they had never fit any mold forced upon them. Neither had their friendship, as vague and undefinable, if unbreakable, as it was. 

(_the relieved smile Clark gives him when he enters the Founders’ hall is almost as painful as the growth in his chest _)

The other man is perched on the conference table, hammer in one hand, a nail in the other. He drops both when Bruce walks in, climbing to his feet. 

“You’re not wearing the suit,” he says, as a way of welcome. Bruce shrugs, feeling the slip and slide of armani on his shoulder like an afterthought. 

“Neither are you.”

Clark points at the ceiling, grinning. He picks up the hammer from the floor, turning back toward the conference table

“Mine’s hidden in the HVAC, and I have super speed,” he says, all plaid overconfidence and rueful country boy as he smirks at Bruce. “What’s your excuse?”

“I have stage four lung cancer.”

The hammer hits the floor with a crack. Clark’s face is ashen, a frown slowly forming, like it takes a singular effort to move every muscle on his face into the right position. His lips twitch, struggling to shape the words. 

“You’re...you’re joking.” Clark says, like it’s a warning. Unlike Leslie, his hands are frozen at his sides, impossibly still. “_ Bruce _…”

He lifts his chin. “Go ahead. Take a look. Tell me I’m joking.”

(_ten years ago, it was the same conversation, but inverted; Clark’s disappointed face as Bruce crosses his arms over the breastplate of the suit, daring him to defy his demand— _

_ “Why?” Clark asks, “you don’t know what might—“ _

_ “Exactly.” _

_ “Exactly?” _

_ “I don’t know. I’m not God, Clark.” The flinch, when it comes, is almost cliche. “Are you?” _

_ “Of course not! I'm just saying--" _

_ “You can’t control everything,” Bruce interrupts, “This is my line. My body, my privacy.” _

_ “Oh, that’s rich,” Clark shakes his head in disbelief. “Coming from you. Are you listening to yourself right now?” _

_ The jab hangs between them for a minute, eyes locked in a battle of wills Bruce knows he cannot lose. _

_ “I’m not asking.” _

_ Clark looks away, jaw clenching. He concedes the point with a glare. _

_ They part ways in a silence that weighs on them both, hot and uncomfortably personal, in the clinical, icy Watchtower corridor. _

_ The next week, the suit is lined in a new combination of lead and copper. If Clark notices, he says nothing_) 

With a deafening sound, the hammer buries itself in the wall behind his head, cleaving through drywall until it hits the layer of titanium alloy he’d doubled under the hull. 

Clark’s eyes are burning red, too bright to look at, the furious stare of a vengeful god.

“Take a _ look?” _ the other man roars, his voice shaking the Watchtower. “You _ told me I couldn’t!_”

Something grabs him around the neck. A half-second’s blur, and he’s pressed against the adjacent wall, Clark burning above him. For a moment, he almost wishes it was enough. Enough to end it all. 

“You forbade me,” Clark whispers, face twisted into an unrecognizable mask. If he hadn’t seen the transformation with his own eyes, the man in front of him might as well have been an entirely different person. “An invasion of privacy. _ Inappropriate. _Crossing a line.”

He splays a hand across Bruce’s chest, appallingly intimate. With a press of his fingers, the buttons disintegrate, leaving his chest bare. Clark’s fingers dig into his sternum, five points of fire on overheated skin. 

“I would have seen it,” Clark utters, wretched. His hair is mussed, eyes a dimming scarlet as the hand around Bruce’s throat slips. “I would have _ seen it, _ you _ son of a bitch!” _

The room spins again, and he slams into the conference table. Feels the wood buckle under his back--all of Clark’s hard work and nails and sweaty, Kansas pride. 

It’s the hardest Clark’s ever thrown him, and it feels like it. The burning in his chest deepens, echoed in the aching of his back and sides. Something’s broken. 

“What’re you...gonna do,” he forces out, feeling the blood bubble up in between the words, working its way down his chin. “...finish the job...early?”

Clark smashes a fist onto the table, inches from his head. A scream rings through the hall, desperate and primal. 

Bruce closes his eyes, waiting. The next hit never comes. A head presses into his chest, a choked sob vibrating through his ribs. 

Absently, he reaches out to stroke Clark’s hair. Red eyes dim against his bare skin, pressed firmly shut. They haven’t been this close in--

_ Ever, _he realizes, as Clark sobs against his chest. It’s a strange conclusion to what should have been an earthshaking moment in their friendship.

“How long?” 

The question sharpens his focus, stinging and unavoidable. He gestures mutely to his chest. After a moment of shocked hesitation, Clark’s eyes unfocus, a beautiful blue in the fluorescent lights—

A shocked, choked-off breath, and Clark’s gaze is turned on him, eyes red-rimmed, filled with an eon of pain. The blood is drained from his face again, leaving the skin a chalky, morbid white. 

(he wonders, self indulgently, if he’ll look the same, sooner rather than later, drained of blood and life force. except—)

“Days,” Clark mutters, a hazy admission. His hand is still splayed across Bruce’s chest, hand digging into his skin. Like he could touch the tumors, thread his fingers through them and lift them out— “did you tell the—“

“Not how long,” he interrupts. He pretends the momentary lack of air is intentional, catching his breath under Clark’s burning gaze. “Would be cruel.” 

“They’re not dumb, Bruce.” 

“I never said they were.” 

Clark’s hand slams into the table, cracking it. The portion under Bruce’s hip crumbles, falling to the floor. 

“I—“ Clark closes his eyes, breathing heavily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“I’m not scared.” 

“Your heart is.” 

Bruce smiles around a mouthful of blood, staining his teeth a dark red. He knows how much Clark hates it. A stark reminder of mortality, he’d said, once. 

“My heartbeat is elevated because I’m dying.” He says, casually, like admitting it verbally doesn’t change anything. “Blood pressure rises, crucial metabolic processes go haywire. The body tries incessantly to fix itself, even as the brain—the key motor functions—devolve.” 

He blinks, vision blurring. Maybe Clark said something, but the memory seems to escape his grasp. He puts a hand to his head. 

“You’re not dying.” 

He snorts. “Of course I am, you idiot.” 

“No. _ Look at me.” _

Bruce tries, forcing his eyelids open. Clark has a hand on either side of his face, but he can’t seem to feel them. He wishes, desperately, in that moment, that he could. 

“Concussion,” he whispers, “...how hard did you t-throw me, b-boy...scout?” 

His vision splits, then triples. Suddenly, there are four Clarks in front of him, four sets of hands, four pairs of burning, burning eyes. 

_ “You're not dying,” _ four mouths say in stereo. 

“Ominous,” he mutters, feeling the dark urge to laugh bubbling up in his chest. 

Clark’s hand drifts from his face. A stinging pressure on his neck, and everything goes suddenly, viscerally, black.

* * *

His chest is burning.

The desire for oxygen surmounts every other thought. He gasps, drawing in a liter of icy, acrid water. Another. Hands are pulling at him; up, down, sideways. He wants to breathe. _ Why can’t he breathe-- _

Awareness hits him like a brick wall. Thrown onto his hands and knees, he chokes up mouthful after mouthful of black, bitter water onto the ground. 

He is numb. So so so so numb. He keeps coughing, willing the burning in his lungs to cease. A warm hand settles between his shoulder blades, sending him careening to the ground. 

“Bruce!”

Clark’s arms encircle his waist, lowering him carefully to the ground. Bruce gasps, choking on nothing. _ Please please please please-- _

“Bruce. It’s me.”

“I k-know who y-you are,” he stutters, swatting weakly at his shoulder. To his surprise, the other man lets go. He forces his eyes open. “Where are we?”

There’s no response. Bruce tries to sit up, knowing a guilty silence when he hears one. Clark is perched on his heels, not looking at him. Behind him, green light was rippling up cracked stone walls, radiating from--

“_No_,” he says, one clipped denial. There’s a thousand layers of betrayal in the syllable, compressed and folded in on itself. 

Clark flinches. 

“_Why?” _he roars. 

“I wasn’t going to lose you,” Clark's still not looking at him. “Not again.”

“What gave you the _ right _?”

The Kryptonian stands, a fluid half-second of movement that leaves Bruce reeling. He raises his shoulders, finally looking him in the eye. 

“I did,” he says, quietly. “And I will never regret it.” 

A shiver runs down Bruce’s spine at the conviction in his voice. At the thin thread of...possession? he can hear. 

“You know what Lazarus pits do to the mind,” he says, willing the tremor in his hands to cease. “To the _ soul_, Clark--”

“I don’t care!” Clark yells, a crack appearing in the thin veneer of calm he’s wearing. “I will drag your ass back here every year for _millennia, _if I have to!”

He’s suddenly, painfully aware of the vastly different positions they’re in, the imbalance between them in the small space. 

Terse silence thrums between them, vibrant and alive. Bruce shifts onto his heels, slowly climbing to his feet. Clark doesn’t move to help him, and he doesn’t ask. 

The question, when it comes, is quiet. 

“Why?”

Clark smiles, the mask on his face momentarily softened. For a moment, he’s the same Kansan idiot upside down on the Watchtower conference table, struggling to hammer in nails without snapping the wood in half. 

“The League would end the world for you." He shrugs, like the admission is meaningless. "You never wondered why?”

“I wasn’t a fan of stroking my own ego, no,” Bruce says, bitterly. Clark concedes the point with a flick of his eyebrows. 

“Maybe if you had, you would have _ understood_.”

He snorts. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you _ missed _something!”

“You think I don’t understand the League?” Bruce asks, voice rising. He waves a hand at the ceiling. “You think I haven’t thought out every iota of their characters? Every single inch of their being? Their--”

“I’m in love with you.” 

Bruce falters, teetering on the edge of his next sentence. “You’re not,” he says, dismissive. 

The look Clark gives him is devastating. Guilt lances through him, sharp and hot. For the first time since he’d emerged from the Lazarus pit, he can’t seem to draw his next breath. 

A sad smile is the even more unwanted coda to their conversation. Before Bruce can protest, a hand latches around his neck again, digging gently into his carotid artery. 

He passes out clutching Clark’s hand, the warm, life-like stone of it under his grip more reassuring than it ought to be. 


End file.
